Students come up with three ideas for inventions every day, research suggests

Teenagers come up with three ideas for new inventions every day, on average, but many feel unsupported in making them become a reality, a report finds.

Research by the government-backed Your Life campaign, which aims to increase the uptake of maths and physics A levels, finds that 91 per cent of young people came up with ideas and inventions every day.

But only four in ten of the 11 to 15-year-olds said they felt supported in developing their ideas.

Girls feel particularly unsupported in bringing their ideas to fruition, with 38 per cent claiming they lack the support to make their ideas and inventions a reality, compared to 31 per cent of boys.

Emma Heatley-Adams, Your Life ambassador, said: “This new research shows that teenagers are simply bursting with ideas to invent things. But for these ideas to come alive we need to encourage young people and give them confidence, especially young girls.

“One way of doing that is by providing them with role models to inspire and excite them so that we can unlock talent and uncover the ideas of the future.”

The Your Life campaign has launched a competition for schools to help nurture the nation’s budding inventors. Students, aged 11 to 16, can enter the Formula 100 competition by sending a short video explaining their invention ideas.

In last year’s competition, Julia Wardley-Kershaw, of Northampton High School, was awarded first place for her idea for an innovative safety system for aircraft. Her prize was a tour of BAE Systems site, where she met test pilots and had the opportunity to try out a state-of-the-art flight simulator.

The research, which is based on interviews with more than 580 students, also revealed that nearly half of pupils believe that maths and physics lessons are boring and a quarter think that they have no relevance to the real world.

Winners of the competition will receive an iPad, £1,000 for their school and get the opportunity to see their invention brought to life.